Spicejet pilots play dual role in airline
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Spicejet pilots play dual role in airline
Spicejet fliers could be travelling in a poorly serviced plane or with a fatigued pilot. The no-frill airline has begun using its Boeing B737 fleet cockpit crew as engineers at smaller airports. One out of every five domestic fliers travels by the airline.
Pilots are faced with additional pressure to maintain a 30-minute turnaround time for the next flight despite the dual role.
“An aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) is supposed to check around 75 items during a stopover of about 20 minutes,” said a retired Boeing commander requesting anonymity. The AME also refuels an aircraft, which takes about 10 minutes.
Senior pilots said it’s “humanly impossible” to perform both roles within 30 minutes because pilots have to perform other duties such a pre-flight briefing, checking trim and load sheets that contain the weight distribution on a plane.
“Shortcuts are bound to be taken, which means many unfit planes could be flying,” said another senior pilot.
The airline introduced the move in April and began training pilots about two months ago. An internal mail dated April 23 accessed by HT stated that the move was meant to avoid flying AMEs to airports without engineering support.
Worse, the airline backed the move by citing a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) rule applicable during emergencies.
“If a flight gets diverted to a small airfield without engineering support, a certified pilot could perform the basic check but it cannot be a routine policy,” said RK Khanna, deputy director general, DGCA (western region).
On Thursday the Spicejet spokesperson said the airline would respond in a day but didn’t revert till the time of going to press.
Spicejet pilots play dual role in airline - Hindustan Times
Pilots are faced with additional pressure to maintain a 30-minute turnaround time for the next flight despite the dual role.
“An aircraft maintenance engineer (AME) is supposed to check around 75 items during a stopover of about 20 minutes,” said a retired Boeing commander requesting anonymity. The AME also refuels an aircraft, which takes about 10 minutes.
Senior pilots said it’s “humanly impossible” to perform both roles within 30 minutes because pilots have to perform other duties such a pre-flight briefing, checking trim and load sheets that contain the weight distribution on a plane.
“Shortcuts are bound to be taken, which means many unfit planes could be flying,” said another senior pilot.
The airline introduced the move in April and began training pilots about two months ago. An internal mail dated April 23 accessed by HT stated that the move was meant to avoid flying AMEs to airports without engineering support.
Worse, the airline backed the move by citing a Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) rule applicable during emergencies.
“If a flight gets diverted to a small airfield without engineering support, a certified pilot could perform the basic check but it cannot be a routine policy,” said RK Khanna, deputy director general, DGCA (western region).
On Thursday the Spicejet spokesperson said the airline would respond in a day but didn’t revert till the time of going to press.
Spicejet pilots play dual role in airline - Hindustan Times
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Spicejet pilots play dual role in airline
Strange...I don't have an AME swarming all over the plane on each turnaround. And the fuel truck guy is only a fuel truck guy, not an engineer.
Obviously not a good story. Also not a well-written one either. Journoes, please check your facts!
Obviously not a good story. Also not a well-written one either. Journoes, please check your facts!
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30 mins??? The ground staff call it spicy turnarounds. And it's 20 mins. And yes, spice captains are now clearing flights on a routine basis. I understand they are getting an extra 15k a month for this privilege.
Master stroke by the beanies. Add a huge responsibility onto the pilots for a measly hike and put pressure on existing maintenance staff to not push for raises.
Disregard the titles in the article and understand the gist and the ramifications of these policies. There definitely is some credence to this story.
Master stroke by the beanies. Add a huge responsibility onto the pilots for a measly hike and put pressure on existing maintenance staff to not push for raises.
Disregard the titles in the article and understand the gist and the ramifications of these policies. There definitely is some credence to this story.
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Pretty common in the rest of the world... no news here just India catching up with reality. Poor Pilots though imagine having to get out of your nice cool cockpit and walk around the plane... !!
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The worst part is from the date this PFI by pilot started they don't even get out of there cockpit and if they get out,after a stressed flight they need to choose between smoking and fueling/walk around and smoking is best thing they can choose to take another flight safely to main base......The worst is about to happen in future....during flighen only they fill tech logs and sigh with the time which is 20 min chocks off and no fuel sample check/walk around.They all depends on technician available on transit station.The only thing left is big disaster to open eyes of airline(think saving money but daily facing groundings),DGCA( corrupted and useless),employees(happy with spicy turnarounds),passengers(unaware they r flying in time bombs).If there is some audits during flight to transit station everyone will get to know reality.It take at least 10 min to deboard and pilot finish document work then he get down need 10 min walk around and 10 min fueling then additional 10 min to complete document work then after complete loading he should come down and check cargo doors additional 5 min.then also we do everything by scarifying safety and give chocks off in 20min and some pilots want to make Guinness world record because once we got chocks off in 9 min and there is no one to question how's it,no internal or dgca audits .....God knows what we r playing with.....DGCA should come forward by taking audits,but DGCA officials r soo cheap u just give them free lunch and tea and they will forget what they need to audit and will go with clean and clear report FOUND OK....god save everyone....
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Irresponsible journalism at its best!
We at indigo have been doing this for quite some time. Indian airlines does it.
The 777 guys on 9W can not only do a transit check if need be but also an ETOPS check!
The heck is this a news?!
Like earlier someone mentioned, this is a standard practice in rest of the world.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.. But Air Arabia, Tiger, Silk... All of them do this as well as the super long ETOPS transi check.
Sheesh!
We at indigo have been doing this for quite some time. Indian airlines does it.
The 777 guys on 9W can not only do a transit check if need be but also an ETOPS check!
The heck is this a news?!
Like earlier someone mentioned, this is a standard practice in rest of the world.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.. But Air Arabia, Tiger, Silk... All of them do this as well as the super long ETOPS transi check.
Sheesh!
